U.N. Task Force Asks Assad to Release 2 Lebanese PrisonersThe U.N. Task Force for Arbitrary Arrests has confirmed the
presence of Lebanese detainees in Syrian jails and pleaded with President Assad's
administration to remedy this situation "at once" in conformity with the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, An Nahar reported on Tuesday. The TFAA said in a
statement in Paris that it was proven true that Syrian authorities hold two Lebanese
citizens who were arrested without legal justification in Lebanon and then taken to Syria.
The two were identified as Tanios Hibir, a Lebanese army corporal, and Najib Youssef
Garamany.
The organization demanded "clear answers" about the Syrian-held Lebanese pair,
saying Garamany was arrested Jan. 24 last year at his house in Baabdat, President Lahoud's
hometown, by Lebanese intelligence officers who produced no arrest warrant. The Lebanese
officers then took Garamany to Syria, where he was sentenced to death on a charge of
spying for Israel in an unfair trial, the statement said, criticizing the Lebanese
government for "showing no interest in getting the Lebanese detainees back from
Syria." Garamany is still held in solitary confinement in a Syrian prison and his
family has been banned from visiting him, according to the TFAA statement as published by
An Nahar.
Hibir, 39, a resident of Beirut's Dikwaneh neighborhood, was arrested in Ein Saadeh by the
Syrian intelligence service in the wake of the October 13, 1990 ouster of Gen. Aoun from
the Baabda palace, the statement said.
Hibir was first taken to Anjar and then to the Palestine branch of the Syrian intelligence
in Damascus "without producing an arrest warrant." He was initially detained at
the Mezza prison and his father was allowed to visit him there, the statement continued.He
was then taken to the prison of Palmyra in central Syria, where he spent 12 years in
solitary confinement without a charge or trial. Beirut, Updated 23 Mar 04, 11:21